T-shirt quilt progress and happy mail

I got another shirt quilted last evening.

I am now 70% done with the quilting. The last 30% will go quick. My son called me on my way home from work and may have a project for me. He wants a quilt for a fundraiser. We threw around a few ideas. Then my neighbor was out looking in their trash bin. Here there were two young raccoons in their bin. They weren't babies, but weren't big enough to get out. They had been in the bin for maybe a day and with it being as hot as it has been, they were suffering especially since they were wearing raccoon fir coats! The fellow rolled the bin out to the street, gently laid it down, opened the lid and coxed them out. They ran to his backyard and up a tree. I didn't have my phone with me so no pictures. I did get some happy mail yesterday. It was a surprise; two pieces of Vicki's sun printed fabric!

I had sent Vicki of Colorways by Vicki Welsh some keys several years ago. I had collected a bunch of keys that were left behind when the school system moved out of the high school that was eventually demolished. Thank you Vicki! I am taking tomorrow off since my nephew has a show. I am hoping it goes on without a hitch. The mayor lifted the curfew Wednesday morning and I haven't hear of any more violence downtown where we will be.  Then we have another show on Saturday night.  It is going to be a busy weekend!  Have a great weekend!

Progress on the t-shirt quilt and the hunt continues

I quilted one more t-shirt last evening and now am 66% done with the quilting. This is the shirt I quilted while I watched the Tour de France

I don't go out of my way to hurt or kill an animal. I stopped this morning so a possum could cross the road, but when comes to them doing damage and costing me money they have to go! The chipmunks have dug tunnels around my foundation that now when we get a heavy rain I get water in my studio coming up in the middle of the floor. I now have to get bigger 6" gutters to replace the ones I had installed 19 years ago to try and keep the water from getting to the foundation. The chipmunks also use to get under the garage slab and had made their way into the ceiling of my lower level studio. Them scratching at night freaked me out! The garage slab failed from the chipmunks digging tunnels and water damage because the downspouts were missing when I bought the house. That cost me around five grand. Yesterday I caught two more so I am up to 9. A bigger animal came along Monday night and must have got a foot or something caught in the one trap because the trap is now missing. I know it wasn't a chipmunk because this past weekend one got his one back foot caught and he was unable to drag the trap very far. I looked all over the yard and didn't see the missing trap anywhere. I will have to order a couple more traps now. It hasn't gotten any easier tossing the dead ones into the woods or drowning the ones that didn't die. I don't know that it ever will.

T-shirt quilt and bowtie progress

It was a busy and fun long weekend. I am now 64% done with the quilting on the current t-shirt quilt. I quilted on it some on Saturday and all day Sunday while my friend and I visited. The quilt measures 69 1/2" x 96 1/2".

Friday I spent the day cleaning and pin basting the bowtie quilt. I will quilt this as soon as I get the t-shirt quilt done. It measurers 78" x 85 1/2".

Before I got started on the bowtie quilt the electrician arrive and finished installing my new overhead lights in the living room. The can lights were 60 years old and were no longer working properly. Only one of the fixtures worked. The ceiling where they are located is 13 1/2 feet so I reminded the electrician to bring a tall ladder! The ladder in the picture is the one I use to hang quilts to take pictures.  It was not tall enough for the electrician to get to the lights.  The new lights are wonderful and have a dimmer switch.

The twins were chillin' out in the backyard.

Saturday I was invited to a 4th of July party. I baked cookies to take as my side dish.

The fellow and his wife had torn down their old house and built a new one. The new place is fabulous! There was live music on the patio which my nephew played with several other fellows

Went and got at drink at the Irish pub right off the patio

Pizza was being freshly made in the outdoor kitchen's pizza oven which was next to the pond

and I enjoyed views of the lake before it got dark and the town set off fireworks which was just across the lake.

Sunday night my friend and I were gathering sticks to have a little fire to cook hot dogs and s'mores. My neighbor was out and had a fire already going. He invited us over to share their fire, so I packed up the hot dogs, buns, and the fixings for s'mores to share with them. We headed over and had a lovely few hours enjoying the nice weather and the fire. I also kept busy this weekend monitoring my traps. I hadn't intended to set the mouse traps, but a mouse had gotten into the bag of sunflower seeds in the garage so I needed to get rid of him. So far I have caught 7 chipmunks and 5 mice. I also caught a toad and a bird; they both were still alive and are now free to live their lives. Sometimes the chipmunks aren't dead, but are injured.  So I get a bucket of water and drown them to put them out of their misery. It's not easy and I try not to look.

Tiny sampler, new project, and the 4th!

Last evening no sewing happened. I had dishes to do, plants to water, and my neighbor came over to put the last coat of mud on my foyer walls. I have been stitching this new little piece. the chart is dated 1983 and I just think it is cute. I am stitching it with my favorite red floss on natural 28 count linen. It measures 3 1/4" x 4 1/2". I have only worked on it a couple hours.

Today a lady I work with brought a quilt that she found at her late great-aunt house. She knows her aunt did not make it, but that it might have been made by her great grandmother. I think I must have influenced her because when she saw it she just couldn't let it go to the auction. I am going to finish it for her. It's a gem. It is all hand pieced very nicely and will be easy to quilt. I will get a picture of the entire top and post it next week. The blocks are 3 inches. Those are some tiny bow ties! I would guess the fabrics are from the 40's. Looks like some feed sack fabric was used.

I am taking a day of vacation tomorrow. The electrician is coming to install a light, I have cookies to make for a 4th of July party, and I need to clean the house because a quilting friend is coming for a couple days. Have a safe and fun 4th of July!

Gas, crows, and a small

We had some excitement at work yesterday. At two o'clock we were all told to leave because there was a gas leak. I called my beautician to see if she was busy so I just head there instead of going home. Work is about half way between my house and the salon, so there was no sense driving home. She wasn't busy so I headed there. There is so much road construction it took longer to get to the salon and going home at 4:30 was even worse. After I get outside town there is a 4 lane limited access highway. They are widening the road from two lane four and so all the traffic only has two lanes to travel. If someone needs to make a left turn it backs up traffic just awful since there is no longer a left hand turn lane. I made a quick stop at Michael's and the library on the way home and I didn't get home until 5:15. I got something to eat and then it was outside to water the plants. I think the first zucchini is coming!

My neighbor was outside and came over to say hello. We talked about my mouse and chipmunk traps. He said he could use a couple mouse traps for his garage so I gave him two since I had six and didn't need that many. For the traps he gave me this piece of homemade carrot cake his Mom had made him for his birthday. I had it for breakfast and it was delicious!

I finished stitching this small.

I think the murder of crows that we have in the neighborhood are raiding the sunflower seeds from my chipmunk traps. We have never had crows in all the years I have lived here, but these 7 or 8 birds have made themselves at home this year. Last evening one was walking in the driveway and headed toward where one of the traps is located. I moved one of the traps to a different location since I hadn't caught any chipmunks where it was.  I just know that in the future I will toss the dead chipmunks in the woods instead of in the garbage.  Man, did my trash bin stink from those two dead chipmunks.  

T-shirt quilting and guitar wall hanger cover

Good grief my evenings fly by so fast. It doesn't seem like I can get much done when I get home from work before it is time to hit the hay! I spent a bit of time in the kitchen then headed to the studio. I now have the first t-shirt almost all quilted. I ran out of bobbin thread and called it a night.

I received a text invite to a 4th of July party! How fun is that? I have needed to make the host of the party some covers for his guitar wall hangers.

I don't know what brand of hangers he has, but the issue is the hangers interact with the finish on the guitar and the guitar finish peels off. I had made a bunch of hanger covers for my nephew and now this fellow who helps out with the band wants some. I didn't have any fur fabric like I used before, but I found some nice thick waffle weave sweatshirt weight fabric in my stash. I had the dimensions for the one's I made my nephew

so I whipped up one. I mailed this one to the fellow this morning and hopefully he gets it quickly so I can make a few more for him and take them to the party with me. The one I sent him is slightly different from this one; the spaces where the forks of the hanger go are thinner and the space between the forks is a bit wider.  I forgot to take a picture of the revised cover.

Trying weekend

Dang I have been tired. I keep pushing though. Saturday I started working on fixing the t-shirt quilt. I needed to replace the back of the safety town shirt with this blue shirt. As you can see the blue shirt motif is bigger than the safety town back.

I ended up tearing out the safety town front so I could trim a bit off the top edge as well as some at the bottom, I trimmed off a bit of the red shirt, and then sew it all back together. Here you can see I got it all fitted back together.

Next was to get this red shirt fitted in where the white back was positioned. Again, the red shirt is bigger than the white.

I trimmed out as much as I could from the front of the white shirt, but that still wasn't enough. I ended up ripping out that orange piece

I trimmed the orange piece and got it fitted back into it's spot.

The next two shirts I had as replacements were about the same size so I only had to trim a little of the shirts that were previously sewn together in order to fit in the replacements. Yes, I ended up having to replace four shirts instead of three. Here is the top all fixed and pin basted.

I stuffed the small that is for my sister's birthday in August. She reads my blog so here is just a bit of what it looks like. I used some vintage hand tatted lace to fancy this up a bit.

I stitched together the four project bags I had cut out last weekend.

I did get a few weeds pulled, but it was so hot and muggy out this weekend I didn't get any more of the deck taken down. Here is a shot of my front flower bed. My coneflowers are so tall this year! They have also finally spread after three years.

I managed to catch two chipmunks this weekend. I had bought some sunflower seed to bate the traps. I also found I needed to wedged the traps between the garage foundation and a rock to make sure they stay in place. A couple of time something flipped the traps shut and evaded being captured. The traps also ended up not where I had place them when they were sprung. The rock helps keep it in place. I think I will move my second trap to another location since I haven't caught anything in it yet. I have caught both in this spot. They run in front of the garage and head around this corner then BAM! The siding j channel helps wedge the trap in place. The rock the trap is sitting on is not flat so the rock to the left helps hold it in place. I always put a pair of gloves on when I empty the trap just because. The handle on the back pops up so it is easy to open the trap and empty it; I don't have to touch the clamping area where the chipmunk was caught. There is no blood or guts thank goodness.